Hopelessly In Love With My Best Friend
by urbanmonkey
Summary: What was running through Lorelai's mind during Raincoats and Recipies


Hopelessly In Love With My Best Friend

Luke & Lorelai

This takes place during Raincoats and Recipes. It mostly focuses on Lorelai's thoughts throughout the episode. All the dialogue was written by the amazing Amy Sherman-Palladino and I own nothing. I copied all the dialogue from a website as well.

italics are Lorelai's thoughts.

"Well?" I anxiously asked Rory.

"What?" She asked furrowing her eyebrows

"You notice anything?"

"Anything?"

_-Oh man, she can be so blind sometimes. Wasn't it her anyway that told me that Luke was in love with me?-_

"Anything weird, anything different?"

"About Luke?" she asked, wondering where this conversation is going.

I rolled my eyes. "Of course about Luke. Did you notice anything different?"

"Like what?"

"Like an attitude, a vibe. Did he look at me differently?"

"Differently than what?"

_-Oh my gosh. Can she seriously be asking this!-_

"Differently than he did," I try and explain.

"Differently than he did when?"

"Before."

"Before what?"

"Before Before. RORY!" I said exasperatedly.

"How on earth can you be frustrated with me right now?" she asks giving me a strange look.

_-I've gotta admit. She's right.-_

I rolled my eyes again. "Fine. Come here."

Without giving her a chance to respond, I grabbed Rory's wrists and quickly pulled her outside. She shook her head slightly as I shut the door and folded her arms across her chest.

"What's your damage Heather?" she sighed.

I took a deep breath before replying. "I think I'm dating Luke."

Rory's eyebrows shot up in surprise and her mouth dropped half way open.

"What?"

"I'm not sure. It's just a possibility. I could be wrong."

_-Oh I hope I'm not.-_

It hit me like a ton of bricks at the wedding. I was finally able to admit something I'd never been able to admit. Something I'd denied and pushed away countless times. I was in love with Luke. Head over heels in love. I'd never felt this way about any other guy, not even Chris or Max. Luke was my best friend. He'd always been there for me, through the good times and the bad. I knew I could always count on Luke when things got rough. He knew everything about me; my annoying little quirks and all.

"What? When?" Rory asked, still reeling from the shock.

"I went with him to his sister's wedding, and it was really nice. We had a really good time. We laughed a lot, and we ate, and then we danced." I said simply.

"Danced? How?"

"We pop locked."

_-How else would she think I danced with Luke?-_

"Was it a fast dance, slow dance, group dance?" she asked, staring hard at me.

"It was a slow dance. What is 'group dance'?" I wondered.

"The hustle, the hora..."

"No hustle, no hora. It was a slow dance...a waltz. Luke can waltz!"

As I said the last part, a small smile spread across my face as I remember the dance we shared. I loved the feeling of my hand in his and his arm wrapped securely around my waist.

"Luke can waltz?" Rory asked, obviously surprised.

The smile grew as I replied, "Luke can waltz."

"Look how you just said 'Luke can waltz'."

Now it was my turn to be confused.

"What? I'm just saying I'm surprised Luke can waltz!"

_-Where is she going with this?-_

"It sounded more like 'I'm surprised I still have my clothes on'."

"Oh stop," I said, looking disgusted.

"What else happened?"

"Nothing." I shrugged my shoulders. "We spent the evening together. We danced, he walked me home, then he asked me to a movie. All of these things individually do not add up to dating, but together, I don't know. And there was this moment, when he walked me home, where I thought..." I paused for a minute, looking down at my shoes. "I don't know."

_-But I do know. I thought 'maybe this could actually work'.-_

"Well, did you say yes?" she questioned.

"When?"

"To the movie. Did you say yes?"

"Yes."

_-Does she actually think I would say no?-_

"That sounds like dating to me," she replied, a small smirk on her face.

"But maybe he didn't mean it as a date thing. Maybe he just needed to get out of the house, and since I'm currently one of the women sitting home, thinking, 'If I could only find a man like Aragorn,' he picked me." I argued, hoping with all my heart that wasn't what Luke was thinking.

"Okay, whoa, this is Luke," Rory said, comprehension finally dawning on her.

"I know."

"You can't just date Luke." she explained. "When you're with Luke, you are _with_ Luke. And if it doesn't work out, it will be really bad for both of us. I mean, how do you feel about this? Do you want to be dating Luke?"

"Okay, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. I don't even know if this is what he's thinking. This could be a totally innocent situation, and then we've done all this what-iffing for nothing. Let's just go back in there and see if anything's weird, okay?" I countered.

"Okay."

"Okay."

I took a deep breath and walked with Rory back into the diner.

"Is everything okay?" Luke asked, walking towards us.

_Oh that voice..._

"Yes," I replied, avoiding his eyes and leaning on the table. UnfortunetlyI slipped and knocked the entire contents of the table onto the floor with a loud crash. Luke quickly grabbed my elbow and helped pull me back up. I was amazed at the warmth that flowed through me at his touch.

"I'll get the broom," he replied, not phased at all by my moment of klutziness.

"That was a little weird," Rory said as I sat down.

I glared at her and made no response.

I looked up to see Luke walk in the Inn later that afternoon carrying a bouquet of flowers. I smiled and quickly smoothed my hair and walked towards him, my smile growing with each step I took.

"Hey, hi. You came."

"Sure. I RSVP'ed," he said.

"Oh."

_Of course he came. Don't sound so surprised that he came Lorelai. He is after all, one of the investors in this inn._

"Here, these are for you...a little congratulations," he said, handing me the bouquet of flowers he was holding.

"Oh, they're beautiful," I said sincerely. "Thank you." My heart began to pound in my chest.

_Luke had brought me flowers. He'd never done that before, as far as I knew with any woman. _

"I was - um…well, okay, so, we should get you all, uh, checked in. And that's...over there." I stammered, my tongue tripping over the words.

_Oh gosh Lorelai, not now. Why do you have to get tongue tied now? It's just Luke. He's your best friend._

Luke chuckled, "You okay?"

" Oh, yeah. Me? I'm totally fine." I said as I turned around a little too quickly, hitting my face on a door that one of Tom's workers had brought in. "Oh!"

"Lorelai!"

As the door rounded the corner, it came back and hit my forehead, pushing me backwards. I felt Luke's hand on my back and shivered a little at his touch.

"Oh, um..." I winced and giggled as my face flushed red. "I'm fine. No problem. Um, that was your door, so you could just follow that on up…and we'll see you at dinner. Rory?" I waved my hand at her to bring Luke's key.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Luke asked, reaching out, his hand lingering nearing near my elbow, concern filling his blue eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine It's like the third time I did that today. It's a bit."

Rory handed Luke his key and I continued, "We're going to be the comedy inn. We finally found our theme. So, you got your key, and, uh, b-b-bye."

"Bye," Luke said with a small laugh as he followed the door upstairs.

_Oh jeez Lorelai, could you have made a bigger idiot out of yourself? And in front of LUKE no less? _

I continued to smile before I caught Rory staring at me strangely.

"I've locked you in before, and I will do it again," I giggled as I sniffed the flowers.

As I was checking on everyone at dinner, I made it a point to save the table Luke was sitting at with Patty and Babette for last. After talking to Rory and Jackson, I walked over to find Patty and Babette engrossed in conversation and Luke staring uncomfortably at his salad.

"Hi, how is everything this evening?" I asked them.

"Oh, my god, these robes!" Babette gushed.

"What are they made of? Cause I'm never getting dressed again," Patty chimed in.

I smiled and turned to Luke.

"How are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm just staring at my plate," he replied, not looking at me.

"He's shy. My bathrobe slipped earlier, and his poor little heart couldn't take it," Babette explained.

_Mental note to tease him about this later..._

"He's been staring at his salad ever since." Patty added.

"I like salad," Luke said simply, looking up for the first time since I'd arrived.

Our eyes locked and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Butterflies swarmed in my stomach as he held my gaze. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth and I couldn't help but smile back. As I looked into his eyes, I saw something I'd never seen before. I couldn't place what exactly it was, but he looked at me differently. I turned slightly, reluctant to lose the moment and walked into the kitchen, butterflies still fluttering in my stomach.

_Come on Lorelai, you can't be doing this. Not now. You've got an inn to run, you can't let your feelings for Luke get in the way of this test run if everything is to go smoothly._

I'd just finished making the rounds and was about to tell Jason to leave again, when I saw Luke come from the lounge looking irritated about something.

"Hey," I called out to him. "The last one up?"

"No, not the last one," he sighed.

"You okay?" I chuckled. "I heard Babette was kicking your butt at Yahtzee."

"Actually I'm feeling pretty stupid right now," he admitted.

"Why?" I asked a little mischeviously, thinking he was referring to the Yahtzee game.

"I'm not a mysterious man am I?" Luke asked.

"Well the wardrobe's a bit of a head scratcher," I replied.

_What is going on and where is he going with the mysterious man thing?_

"I think I've been very, very clear with my intentions."

"Your..." I started.

"You know, the wedding, the movie invite, the flowers."

I smiled as flashes from each of those moments danced in my mind. "Luke."

"You knew what I was doing!"

"Well, no, not officially."

_He does love me. Rory was right. Sookie was right. The entire town was right. _

"Not officially? Oh, come on. I mean, I didn't have a ref present, but other than that," he scoffed.

"Well, you didn't say anything official," I reminded him.

"What was I supposed to say? I did things. I let my actions speak. That's what you're supposed to do. Your supposed to let your actions speak. That's the romantic way to do this, damn it," he said growing more frustrated by the second.

_This is definitely one of the reasons I fell in love with you Luke. You truly are a softie at heart._

"Okay, you're right, I'm sorry," I apologized.

"And you went along with all of it. So naturally, I assumed we were on the same page, and then your boyfriend shows up here at the inn that I invested in."

I saw his eyes grow cold at the mention of Jason.

I started. "Whoa, what boyfriend? You mean Jason?

"No, Tom. Yes, Jason," he said bitterly

"You guys were talking?" I asked surprised. "What did he say?"

"He said you were together. I mean, I was sitting there listening to this guy spout on and on about how it's right, you're right, he's right. The whole time, I'm thinking, "What the hell have I been doing all this for? She's taken'." he continued, a brief look of defeat replacing the cold look before he stormed out the door.

_NO! He can't think I'm taken!_

"I -- I'm not taken! We broke up!" I called, following him out to the porch of the Dragonfly.

"Well he doesn't know that," he said coldly.

"Well, just calm down," I exclaimed, trying to console him.

"Aw, I don't want to calm down! I did everything right! I did exactly what the book said!" Luke yelled.

I gave him a confused look. "The book!"

_What book is he talking about?_

"I thought we were on track and now your standing here looking at me like I'm crazy!" he accused, ignoring my question completely.

"I'm not looking at you like your crazy!" I argued.

"You know the last time I bought flowers for someone? Never! That's when! Very easy stat to remember!" he yelled.

_He's never bought flowers for anyone but me? Oh Luke..._

"I loved the flowers," I said sincerely.

"And then when I walked you home after the wedding, there was a moment. I thought there was a moment," Luke ranted.

"There was!" I heard myself yell.

Luke stopped ranting and stared at me.

"There was a moment," I admitted.

_He knows now. _

Luke continued to gaze at me for a moment longer before he stepped towards me, placing his hand on my waist. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and took a small step backwards.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Will you just stand still?" he said, pulling me close.

Time seemed to stand still as Luke pulled me towards him and pressed his lips on mine. Waves of electricity coursed through my body and fireworks burst behind my eyelids. My arms immediately wrapped around his neck and he gently ran his hand through my hair, then slid it down across my waist.

_Wow, that was a great kiss..._ was all I was able to think of as I reluctantly pulled away.

Luke had one hand resting on my waist but let it fall to his side as I looked back up at him and began to close the distance between us.

He took a small step backwardsand again placed his hand on my hip.

"What are you doing?" he asked gently.

"Will you just stand still?" I replied quietly, reaching up and placing my hand on his face.

I leaned in and my lips found his as Luke's placed his hand on my back pulling me closer towards him, then wrapping one arm around the back of my neck while my arm snaked around his waist. This kiss left me breathless just as the first did, and I broke the kiss, taking a small step backwards. Luke's hands continued to linger on my hips and he again pulled me closer. My hands slid up his chest towards his shoulders as he leaned down to kiss me again.

_I love you Luke. I love you so much_ I thought, wishing more than anything that I could find the words to tell Luke how I felt.

But as our lips were about to touch again, a loud scream came from upstairs and we both flew backwards and looked towards the stairs to see Kirk running down towards us with nothing but a pillow covering him. Kirk continued screaming as he ran out the door and out into the night.

"I'll be right back. I'll explain later," Luke said to me and turning and running after Kirk.

I continued to stare after Luke and ran my fingers across my lips which continued to tingle long after Luke had left.

I was hopelessly in love with my best friend. Hopelessly and completely, and tonight was what I hoped, the beginning of a beautiful relationship.


End file.
